Abstract
Attempting a definition of the role of details in architecture, Philip Johnson (1964: 137) an architectural guru quotes a maxime which within the architectural community has always been ascribed to Mies Van der Rohe: “God lies in the detail”. „Der liebe Gott steckt im Detail.“ The German version of the adage, perhaps the original source of Mies’s maxime, was used by Aby Warburg, an art historian, to indicate the foundation of the iconographical method for re-searching in art history. «Le bon Dieu est dans le detail.» The French version has been attributed to Gustave Flaubert and in this case was used as indication of a manner of literary production (Hecresche, 1974:101). The common denominator in these three different forms and uses of the maxime indicates that the process of signification is in the detail. This concept has triggered the following sequence of thoughts and observation on the role of the detail in the process of signification in architecture. The aim of this paper is to show that the role of detail is that of being the generator, a role traditionally ascribed to the plan (Le Corbusier, 1924), and that technology with its dual presence as techne of logos and logos of techne (Frascari, 1981) is the base for the understanding of the role of details.
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